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Longhole Stoping at the Asikoy Underground

Copper Mine in Turkey
Alper Gönen
Mining Engineering Department,
Dokuz Eylul University, İzmir,
Turkey

1. Introduction
Asikoy underground copper mine is located in Küre county, some 60 km north of
Kastamonu province and 25 km from Black Sea cost. Underground mining method is
longhole stoping with post backfill. Ore production is 420.000 ton/year with an average of
%2 copper grade[1].

2. Geology of the region

Küre copper deposits occur along the middle pontide zone. Although it exists in a region
which has considerably different geological past from the southeast Anatolian ophiolite
zone, Küre massif sulfide deposits comprise properties that could be classified within the
Kieslager type, which is between Cyprus type and Kuroko type [2]. In the region, there exist
the plagical sediments formed of subgrovacs and shales and also the toleitic basalt
volcanites that are the products of the mid-ocean extension. It is seen that important
tectonic movements occurred within the Küre formation. The units are intercepted with an
N-S oriented fault. The mineralization takes place in the weak zone induced by this fault
and also within the toleitic basalts and along the borders of the plagical sediments. The
overall geologic map of the study area is demonstrated in Figure 1.

The ore mass occurs within the altered basalt series that are a part of the Küre ophiolites and
is overlain with black shale. The ore mass consists of coarse lenses broken with faults and
thrusted. The ore, which is composed of pyrite and chalcopyrite, is in the form of massif
lenses with high grades under the hanging wall black shale and in the form of stock work
pyrite and chalcopyrite veins with low grades within the altered footwall formation. Pyrites
and chalcopyrites occasionally show colloform textures. (Figure 1).

3. Underground mining method

In Aşıköy underground copper mine, there are two main mineralisation zones named as the
east and west sector between the 945 m level and 792 m level. The main access adit is
horizontal and connects with spiral ramp at 932 m level. Spiral ramp that developed in the

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Fig. 1. Simplified geological map of the Küre mining district (Kuşçu and Erler, 2002) [3].

footwall of the orebody was driven between 932 m level and 792 m level at 6-7 degrees
(Figure 2). There are two vertical shafts from surface (1080 m level) to bottom level for
ventilation. The exhaust shaft is equipped with a winch-raised cover, which can be raised in
winter to induce natural air movement.
Most development is within the competent footwall rock mass. Drilling rounds are about 53
holes, 45 mm in diameter and 3.5 m hole length. The orebody exhibits different rock mass
characteristics. Ground support is by shotcrete, bolting with mesh, mesh reinforced
shotcrete, standard Swellex in 2.4 m and 3.3 m lengths, and cement grouted bolts in 3 m, 4 m
and 6 m lengths.
Orebody, which dips at 60 degrees, is accessed from this ramp, along the levels that are
spaced 12 m in vertical interval. At each level, along footwall contact or in the center of the
orebody, strike access drifts are developed with 4.5 m-wide x 4.5 m-high dimension. Across
the strike, 7 m-wide x 4.5 m-high sill drifts are driven until the hangingwall contact. These
drifts vary in length, depending on the thickness of the orebody [1].

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Longhole Stoping at the Asikoy Underground Copper Mine in Turkey 49

Fig. 2. General underground mine layout.

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50 Mining Methods

At the end of the sill drifts, 1.5 m x 1.5 m slot raise is opened and then widened out to 7 m to
drift width. Blast holes are drilled parallel with 76 mm diameter in the downward direction
between two sill drifts. Hole lengths are 7.5 m and one or two rows are blasted at a time.
Spacing and burden between holes are 2.1 m and 1.9 m respectively. The main blasting
agent is ANFO, with powergel primers and nonel initiation (Figure 3).
Blasted ore is mucked from lower sill drift by remote controlled LHD and transported to
orepass. At 804 m level, orepass system feeds the underground crusher. -10 cm crushed ore
travels along a conveyor belt to a feeder and into flexowell vertical conveyor belt system at
792 m level. At 920 m level, a belt conveyor at an avarage grade of 8 degrees transfers the
ore to the surface primary crusher.

Fig. 3. Slot opening at the end of the stope.

After extracting the ore between two sill drifts, the open stope is backfilled from upper sill
drift (Figure 4). Two types of backfill material are used. These are cemented rock fill and
uncemented rock fill. Cemented rock fill has % 5 cement content by weight and is used for
backfilling of primary stopes. After two adjacent primary stopes are backfilled, the primary
pillar between them can be mined as secondary stope and backfilled with uncemented rock
fill. Trucks are used for both types of backfilling. Open stopes, especially located at orebody
boundaries, are backfilled with cemented rock fill.

4. Mine stability and mining sequence

In order to analyse the stability of the stopes and pillars and the the whole mine in general, a
series of rock mechanics tests were performed on the core samples taken from the ore, basalt
and backfill material and the geomechanical properties of the samples were determined as
in Table 1. In the models set up by using Phase2 program, namely the finite element method,
these values obtained in the laboratory were used [4].

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Longhole Stoping at the Asikoy Underground Copper Mine in Turkey 51

Fig. 4. Development, production and backfilling operations.

Ore Basalt %5 Cemented Backfill

Density (gr/cm3) 4,1 2,7 2,1
Uniaxial Compressive Strength (MPa) 55 65 6,5
Indirect Tensile Strength (MPa) 4,9 6,1 0,7
Cohesion (C) (MPa) 12,3 13,5 1,4
Internal Friction Angle (ф) 43,8 45,5 25,4
Young Modulus (MPa) 33500 47600 2850
Poisson’s Ratio 0,26 0,25 0,34
Table 1. Geomechanical properties of the ore, basalt and backfill.

When the stresses are analysed in the case in which the stopes are extracted moving upward
and the cavities were filled with either the cement added backfill or ordinary uncemented
backfill, it was understood that no stability issue would arise. An example of vertical stress
distribution around open stopes and pillars is shown in Figure 5 [5].
Although the production sequence of the stopes proceeds from bottom to the top, not all the
stopes in the lower level are extracted to move on to the production of the upper levels.
There are two main reasons for this condition. With respect to the former one; since the head
entry of the lower stope is employed again as the tail entry of the upper stope later, it can
not be filled with any backfill material, which means that the bottom part of the tail entries

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Fig. 5. Vertical stresses between 810 m level and 858 m level at west sector of mine.

of the upper levels is composed of backfill material. In this case when all the drifts come side
by side (as the width of the drift equals the width of the stope), stability problems will be
observed as there will be no support beneath the prospective unextracted stopes. With
respect to the latter one; since there are many stopes at the same level, the production of
many stopes from the same level entries will be hard.
Therefore, to make simultaneous productions out of a couple of levels will be convenient
from the aspects of stope stability, machinery-equipment organization and the ore grade
optimization. Generally, the production sequence from bottom to the top happens to be in
triangular or diagonal shape. This mentioned production sequence is very important from
the view of stability of the underground mine.

5. References
[1] Köse, H., Yalçın, E., Gönen, A., Evaluation of Etibakır Asikoy underground copper mine
the second-stage project tecnically (in Turkish), Project report, Dokuz Eylul
University Foundation, Izmir, 2007.
[2] Koç, Ş., Unsal, A., Kadıoğlu, Y. K., Geological, Geochemical and Geotechnical Properties
of Küre(Kastamonu) Ore Deposit, (in Turkish), MTA Journal 117, pp 41-54. 1995.
[3] Kuşçu, İ., Erler, A., Pyrite deformation textures in the deposits of the küre mining district
(Kastamonu-Turkey), Turkish Journal of Earth Sciences (Turkish J. Earth Sci.), Vol.
11, pp. 205-215, 2002.
[4] Gönen, A., Investigating The Underground Mining Method Of Etibakır Co. Küre Copper
Mine Technically And Economically. (in Turkish), Phd Thesis, Dokuz Eylul
University The Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, İzmir, 2010.
[5] Köse, H., Yalçın, E., Gönen, A., Investigation of Stability of Open Stopes and Pillars in
Longhole Stoping Method at the Asikoy Underground Copper Mine (in Turkish),
Project report, Dokuz Eylul University Foundation, Izmir, 2007.

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 Mining Methods
Edited by Prof. Turgay Onargan

ISBN 978-953-51-0289-2
Hard cover, 64 pages
Publisher InTech
Published online 09, March, 2012
Published in print edition March, 2012

An economic viability of a modern day mine is highly dependent upon careful planning and management.
Declining trends in average ore grades, increasing mining costs and environmental considerations will ensure
that this situation will remain in the foreseeable future. This book describes mining methods for the surface
and underground mineral deposits. The methods are generalized and focus on typical applications from
different mining areas around the world, keeping in mind, however, that every mineral deposit, with its geology,
grade, shape, and volume, is unique. The book will serve as a useful resource for researchers, engineers and
managers working in the mining industry, as well as for universities, non-governmental organizations, legal
organizations, financial institutions and students and lecturers in mining engineering.

How to reference
In order to correctly reference this scholarly work, feel free to copy and paste the following:

Alper Gönen (2012). Longhole Stoping at the Asikoy Underground Copper Mine in Turkey, Mining Methods,
Prof. Turgay Onargan (Ed.), ISBN: 978-953-51-0289-2, InTech, Available from:
http://www.intechopen.com/books/mining-methods/longhole-stoping-at-the-asikoy-underground-copper-mine-
in-turkey

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